Bright Future
by AxCfangirl
Summary: Ulen thinks it's natural for humans to wish for a brighter tomorrow. He has always wanted a glorious future for himself. And he wishes for the bright future in his last moment. UlenVia


English is not my first language. Please bear with grammatical errors.

And for your information, my fic is based on the remastered version (but I watched the original version, too).

 **Disclaimer: I don't own GS/GSD.**

* * *

 **Bright Future**

* * *

Ulen Hibiki had always believed it was part of human nature to wish for a better future. Everyone wanted to be happy. The natural desire drove people to work hard to gain what was better, what was the best, which would eventually let the entire human race make progress. Therefore, it was natural for people to wish their children to have the best, be the best.

He was proud to be one of the best geneticists in the world, who could help people fulfill their wishes, help their dreams come true. He created people with excellent abilities, advanced people, improved human beings. He helped humankind move to the next, greater stage. He was one of those who created the wonderful future for the world, for the entire human race.

However, not everyone shared his view, to his chagrin. Even his wife objected his experiment that was going to be his biggest achievement, one of the greatest achievements in the history—or even _the_ greatest.

It had not been always like that. She had agreed with the experiment at first. Or at least she had supported him. Due to consistent failures, however, she seemed to have lost faith in the experiment, in him.

He could understand why she was upset over the lost objects, the lost embryos and fetuses, to some extent since many of them had contained their genes and were supposed to have been born as their children.

But it wasn't like he had been destroying them intentionally. Besides, they had been necessary sacrifices for the greater good, for the success of the experiment, for a brighter tomorrow. Their sacrifices had helped improve the artificial womb, which he was sure would finally succeed to produce an Ultimate Coordinator and fulfil his dream, fulfil the dream of humanity.

The belief encouraged him to use one of the embryos in his wife's womb as the object this time.

The idea had occurred to him when Via had told him she was pregnant with twins. All previous objects had been artificially fertilized eggs. He had come to suspect it was one of the factors that had led to failures, since the survival rate of artificially fertilized eggs was lower than that of eggs naturally fertilized inside mothers' bodies. However, it was much more difficult to obtain those eggs.

The timing was perfect. The pregnancy seemed like a gift from the gods, though he wasn't the religious type and would have laughed if someone else had said it. But the news of Via's pregnancy had strengthened his hope that the experiment would be finally successful after a long period of hardships.

He had one of the embryos removed from his wife's uterus into the artificial womb without telling her, for he had suspected she wouldn't agree with it, which turned out true.

Finding out what he had done, she became pretty upset and demanded he give the baby back to her.

He tried to reason her. As a mother, she surely wanted the best for her child. Then, she should understand this was the way.

Sure, it was risky. But there were times you had to take risks if you wanted to make a big gain. He was giving the embryo, which he had found out was male, the best chance for happiness, the chance for a wonderful life.

Plus, even if the experiment failed again, Via could at least have the other child. That was why he had left one of the twins in her womb without even operating the genetic modification procedure on it since Natural fetuses were more likely to survive the pregnancy than Coordinator ones, though it didn't seem to be appeasing Via as he had hoped.

"Do you really think that 'happiness' you say is worth the baby's life? How could you do this to me?" she said in a shaking voice, her body shaking as well.

He patiently explained, "I'm telling you, this is worth the risk. And I just want a bright future. What's wrong with that?"

"Bright future for who? The baby? Or you?"

"Enough, Via! Why can't you understand?!"

"Why can't _you_ understand?" His wife's eyes were full of tears and desperation, which made him irritated and uncomfortable. He couldn't understand why she wouldn't understand this was best for their son.

She didn't seem to forgive him for taking her baby out of her womb even after their son was born perfectly healthy, with excellent potential, the best gift any parents could ever give their child.

* * *

"It's fortunate they're twins." Via's voice was nearly a whisper, but it still reached his ears since the room was quiet except the noise of the machines he had put around the crib to record conditions of the babies.

He was checking monitors while she had been sitting by the crib, watching the children sleeping peacefully side by side.

"Yes," he answered absent-mindedly. Writing down some numbers, he added, "Though it would be better if Cagalli was a boy. Even better if they were identical twins. Then, we could compare them more accurately."

His wife remained silent for a while.

When she spoke, there was a strain in her voice. "I didn't mean it that way."

"No?" he said, not paying attention.

After a few minutes, she explained in a rather weary tone, "I'm glad they're twins because...whatever happens, they won't be alone."

"Yeah...I guess."

She didn't say anything anymore until he finished the work and stood up to leave the room.

"And they will know, ultimately it doesn't matter if you're a Natural or a Coordinator."

He stopped at the words and turned around toward his wife with a frown. She wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the twins.

"That's not true. It does matter."

"It doesn't. And they'll know that," she said firmly, still not turning her face to him as if refusing to see him. "I'll make sure they do." She reached out to gently stroke each baby's cheek.

With a deeper crease in his forehead, he opened his mouth to argue, but changed his mind. Shaking his head, he left the room without saying anything despite his desire to point out her mistake.

Of course, he didn't agree with those who believed that Coordinators were entirely different from Naturals, a new species, and Naturals were a useless creature now, as much as he didn't with Blue Cosmos. Both sides were nothing but ridiculous.

Even though Coordinators generally were born with brains capable of storing more knowledge, being a Coordinator didn't automatically guarantee intelligence. You had to make an effort to bring out your talents. Some Coordinators were too lazy or arrogant to use their talents to the full, which in his opinion made them failures. Seriously, what was so good about having higher potential if you didn't harness them?

On the other hand, some Naturals were born with exceptional intelligence and talents, and most importantly, the ability to work hard to make the best use of their potential, like him. He was sure he was smarter and had made greater achievements than many Coordinators.

And he firmly believed Coordinators and Naturals should coexist peacefully. Competition was fine, preferable even, but those killing and fighting had no point. It was absolutely stupid, a waste of time and resources.

He often felt annoyed and disappointed at the fact that not just many Naturals but also many Coordinators seemed to fail to realize that. They were supposed to know better.

As George Glenn had said, Coordinators were supposed to work as an intermediary, to be the one to bring the human race to outer space and to the greater future, not the one to push the world back to the past, to the age of barbaric fighting.

It was part of the reason why he thought Ultimate Coordinators were needed. If only Coordinators could be born exactly the way they had been planned to, then they would surely be so much better people, who wouldn't fall for such a false belief. Ultimate Coordinators would be able to straighten the world, make it the way it should be. And then, humankind finally could open the door to the brilliant tomorrow, which they should have done many years ago, Naturals and Coordinators hand in hand.

However, it didn't mean Coordinators and Naturals were not different as his wife thought.

They _were_ different. That was why they needed each other.

Eventually, the majority of the population would likely be Coordinators since they had higher abilities and thus a higher chance of survival. Still, Coordinators were far from perfect.

Some researches had shown it was more difficult for a Coordinator couple to procreate than for a Natural couple. It had been assumed that a second-generation Coordinator couple would face even more difficulty in producing a child than a first-generation couple, though it was only a hypothesis at the moment due to the fact that all second-generation Coordinators were still fairly young.

Until this problem was solved, at the very least, Coordinators needed Naturals to maintain their population.

Some people had also expressed concern over Coordinators' lack of genetic diversity. Because of the genetic modification procedure they, or their parents, all had gone through, they were genetically less diverse than Naturals. Genetic diversity was important for the survival of the race. Even though Coordinators had immunity against known diseases, it wouldn't work in the case of an unknown disease. It was possible that one new disease would kill most, if not all, of the Coordinators while many Naturals would survive the disease thanks to their diversity.

Well, it wouldn't be the end of Coordinators. Since Coordinator children could be produced even after all Coordinators became dead. Coordinators would never be exterminated as long as there were a person who could operate the genetic modification procedure and a Natural couple who could provide an embryo.

But if all of the human population became Coordinators, human beings might go extinct due to one disease. Not to mention there might be people crazy enough to create some kind of bacterium or virus which killed only Coordinators.

Therefore, it was best for the survival of the human race to keep both the Natural population and the Coordinator population, he believed.

It was another reason why he had let Cagalli be born as a Natural. Making one baby of his a Coordinator—the first Ultimate Coordinator—and another a Natural had seemed good since it would increase the total survivability of his children, his genes.

It was so because Kira and Cagalli were different. Because Coordinators and Naturals were different.

Yet his wife didn't get it.

Although she wasn't part of his team, she was still a geneticist like him. And yet, she couldn't appreciate the importance of creating Ultimate Coordinators, how different Coordinators and Naturals were and should be.

She was an intelligent woman and a remarkable scientist. That was partly why he had been attracted to her. Nevertheless, she had a tendency to get carried away by her emotions, which was her biggest weakness.

Walking down the corridor, he exhaled in frustration. He didn't like what she had said earlier, but didn't want to be bothered by it now. The twins were just babies. There would be some time before they became old enough to understand these things. He would talk to his wife later, when she wasn't being so stubborn—which seemed to be becoming very rare.

* * *

Finishing today's observation of the twins, he turned around to find his wife standing by the door. He felt a little nervous. They had not been doing really well these days—or months.

He walked past her swiftly, but her voice stopped him after several steps on the corridor. "Wait."

He looked at her over his shoulder. "What is it? I'm—"

"Don't leave yet. You need to take time to look at the babies."

He frowned, turning to fully face her. "I already observed them. There's nothing wrong with either of them."

"That's not what I mean." She took several breaths as if she was calming herself down. "You should start to spend time with them as their father and really know them."

"I take time every day. You know that."

"No!" she raised her voice. "No, it's different. You observe them, but don't really look at them. You don't see _them_. All you see is your experiment, an Ultimate Coordinator baby. And a Natural baby. You care about how Kira's doing, how he grows. And you check how Cagalli's doing, too. But you do it only to check if he's growing as you expected, how different or similar their growths are, how ordinary or special she is."

She threw her hands in the air in an exasperated manner, motioning toward the babies. "But they're your children! Not your products!"

He replied with annoyance, "I know that. What do you think I am?"

"Then, what do you know about them?" She didn't budge a bit. "Kira sleeps really well, and rarely fusses, but once he does, it takes long to calm him down. Cagalli, on the other hand, often fusses, but she's easy to calm down. And she makes a lot of noise and moves a lot. Did you know that? Do you even _want_ to know?"

"You know I'm busy."

"You spend so much time working on your project and papers, but you don't have even an hour to spend with your kids?"

"My project's important. Why can't you understand that?!" he spoke angrily.

She held his gaze. "And they are not? Are you really willing to be their father?"

One of the babies started crying probably due to their quarrel, and she glanced in the direction.

"I _am_ their father. I already am. Stop talking nonsense, Via."

She turned her face and attention back toward him, her lips compressed. "No, you're not. You can't be a parent just because you gave them life, just because you gave them your genes. You can't be a parent unless you make an effort to become one. Unless...you care about them, you love them."

She stared at him with blazing eyes. "Do you?" Her voice, in contrast, was oddly calm. "Do you, Ulen?"

" _O_ _f course_ I do." He couldn't believe his own wife was asking this, asking such a foolish question. Why else did she think he had been working this hard on them? Not only on Kira. He had been giving Cagalli some early education programs for infants so that she could realize her potential in the future.

"Because they carry your genes? Because they'll make you famous? Because they'll help you satisfy your ambitions?"

She paused, and then continued in a harder voice, "Or because they are Kira and Cagalli?"

"What..." He knitted the brows, not following her.

"I can't let you be with them if you don't love them. You'll just hurt them and I won't let you do it. To my children."

"They're _my_ children!" he exploded, which caused another baby to start crying along with his or her twin, though he didn't pay much attention to them. He was too angry at their mother.

"Mine! You can't take them away from me. Don't you dare," he gritted in a warning tone. Many of his colleagues would cower when he was this mad. But not his wife.

She glared back at him with the same intensity, if not more. "I will do anything to protect them. _A_ _nything_. I warn you, Ulen. If you don't wanna lose them, be their father. Not just the man who gave them his genes."

After looking daggers at him for a few more moments, she turned around to go and soothe the crying babies.

Breathing hard and clenching his hands into fists, he turned his back toward his wife and children.

* * *

"Wow, they drink so much. No wonder they've grown so big!" a woman with blue hair cheerfully exclaimed, looking from Kira, whom she was bottle-feeding, to Cagalli, whom Via was breast-feeding. Calida, Via's sister, had come to take the twins to her house.

Many Coordinators and the facilities operating the genetic modification procedure on embryos had been attacked by terrorists for years. The number of attacks had been increasing along with Naturals' hostility toward Coordinators.

For months, Via had been worrying their lab might become a target since it was one of the biggest and most famous ones, especially after the news of the birth of an Ultimate Coordinator. There had been threats against Kira along with him, and she had insisted at least the twins be sent somewhere safer.

He didn't like the idea, partly because he had doubts that she was using it as an excuse to sneak away with the children, take them away from him as she had threatened.

However, another lab in Mendel had been attacked by terrorists recently, though the damage had not been really severe. Therefore, he had finally agreed to entrust the babies to his sister-in-law and her husband, who lived in a neighbor colony, for a while, despite not being happy about it since his observation of them would be interfered.

Via had wanted to go with the twins, but she participated in a project and her schedule wouldn't be clear for at least several more weeks, and she had been edgy.

"You can feed Kira with both formula and baby food. But don't forget Cagalli can't have baby food yet, and—"

While Via was giving instruction to her sister, for the umpteenth time, he brought the luggage to the car parked in front of their house. Via and he were going to take Calida and the babies to the port and see them off. Via had urged him to take a day off for this and he had complied.

As he was putting the last piece of luggage in the trunk, his wife came outside, bringing some stuff she had waited to pack until the last moment.

He eyed one of the toys, in which he had secretly planted a tracking device in case Via was still planning to run off. It was Kira's favorite, and she would certainly take it with them. Even though she seemed to have been worrying too much about the children's safety to think about leaving him, he had not completely lowered his guard.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked, checking the energy meter.

"Not yet. I'll make Calida practice changing diapers with one of the babies before leaving."

"Do you really have to do it?" he asked impatiently. "You already sent all instructions to her last week, and yet still keep telling her what she should do the whole morning. You'll join them soon, and she can just send you questions via e-mail in the meantime."

She returned with a small frown, "I just wanna make sure she knows everything she needs...just in case something happens to me—us."

He tossed his head. "I still don't think it's very likely. The security here is even tighter since that attack two weeks ago. Those terrorists are just stupid people. They can't be smart enough to slip in now."

"Well, better safe than sorry. And we should consider all possibilities, shouldn't we? Isn't that what you always say?" she snapped at him with a tone of sarcasm in her voice.

Offended, he glared at her, but before he shot back, someone called out from the street, "Excuse me. Is Dr. Ulen Hibiki home?"

A man with a blue jacket and a blue hat was coming in their direction. The man had a big package in his arms and looked like a delivery man of some sort.

Giving an irritated sigh, he stepped around the car toward the man. "Yes, this is Dr. Hibiki. How can—" He broke off his words and stopped, noticing a twisted smile cross the man's face. There was a fanatical glint in the man's eyes. A cold chill ran down his spine.

Instinctively, he turned his body toward his wife and reached out his arms to her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man pull out a gun and point it at them.

"For the blue and pure world!" His ears somehow picked out the words amid gunshots and Via's scream. He might be screaming himself.

Although he felt the impact of bullets hitting his body, he didn't feel the pain. He tried hard to grab his wife and run away, yet his body didn't obey. He fell on the ground, Via in his arms.

He could see blood stains on her face and clothes. Her eyes were on him, but she didn't appear to be seeing him.

"—agalli...Kir..." she breathed out, and then, her eyes turned blank. Her life was gone. His wife was gone.

And he would be too, in a short time. He could feel it. He could feel his blood and life flowing out of his body. His sight was blurred and his ears were ringing. He thought he heard the man laugh triumphantly, but he couldn't be sure.

He couldn't know what the man was doing. He hoped the man would run away without entering the house. Then, Calida could escape with the twins. She would take them to a safe place as planned. His children would survive, though he couldn't know how they would grow up anymore.

He felt a pang of frustration and anger. He wasn't supposed to die like this. He didn't want to die here. There were so many things he wanted to do.

He had many ideas he wanted to explore, many projects he wanted to work on, many goals he wanted to achieve, which should have been possible after the success of the Ultimate Coordinator Project and the ample funds it would bring.

He wanted to see how Kira would become more and more special as he grew up, how Kira would excel in many areas, and how his project would be praised for giving birth to such an excellent person.

He wanted to see how Cagalli would grow, how special she would be in her own way. He was sure she would be an excellent person, too. She was his daughter, and Via's.

All of them had been supposed to come true. They should come true. His future should be bright. He should be going to be widely known and highly respected, enjoying great glory. He should be going to be a proud father of two excellent children.

Yet his bright future had been robbed of him. Now, there was no future for him.

He wouldn't be able to make any more achievements. He wouldn't be able to make any more changes in this world.

And he wouldn't be able to see what kinds of teenagers and adults his children became. He wouldn't be able to be there on their graduation days, their wedding days, and days when his grandchildren were born.

He had not realized how much he wanted it until now. He wanted to be part of their lives. He wanted to spend his life with his son and daughter as their father.

Regret flooded his mind. He wished he had spent more time knowing his children, playing with and taking care of them, not just observing their growths, as his wife had said. He wished he had been a better father, and a better husband.

But now, it was too late. He had no more time. He couldn't be with his children anymore. He had no chance to make it up to his family.

He had to leave his children, two helpless babies, in this imperfect world. They were too little to remember him, and what they would hear as they grew up was the story of a man who had cared more about his experiment than his wife and children, who had chosen to be a scientist rather than a husband and father. That was how he would be remembered by his children. And there was nothing he could do about it.

He just wished they would forgive him someday. For not being there for them when they would need him. For not having been a good father.

He wished that even if that wish of his wouldn't come true, at least his children would have good, happy lives. Together, being part of each other's life.

Even though they had lost their mother and were losing their father, they wouldn't be alone. They still had each other. Now he understood what Via had meant. Now he agreed with her. He was also glad Kira and Cagalli were twins.

He wished they would love each other even though he was a Coordinator and she was a Natural. They were still siblings, family, and both humans. He wished this world would become a better place, where his children could live together happily. Where they wouldn't be separated and have to hate each other just because of their genetics.

He wished he could do more for them than simply make wishes. But being a dying man, it was all he could do now.

So he wished with all his might, with all his strength left, with all his heart and soul. He wished, for the sake of his children. He wished for the bright future. For Kira, for Cagalli, and for the world.

* * *

 **The End**

* * *

 **A/N** : This is a by-product of "Grass on My Side." While writing the KiraLacus chapter of the fic, Kira's part to be exact, I felt somewhat guilty because I made it seem like Ulen had been a really bad person. (He was even called a monster...) I had to, since Kira in the fic hates him.

But I don't think he was _that_ bad. Sure, he was clearly not a saint, but he must have had some good points. He was just a human. So I wrote this fic as a kind of apology, trying to depict him like one.

···

There are several things I'd like to mention:

1\. The idea of someone creating a bioweapon that only kills Coordinators isn't mine. I had read a fanfic based on the idea and borrowed it.

2\. In the GS episode 14, there is a shot of a couple being killed which appears before the shot of Calida, Kira's adoptive mother, running away with the twins. I heard the couple is Kira and Cagalli's birth parents. So I based the scene of their death on the shot.

3\. I'm no scientist. Most of my knowledge on biology or genetics come from my high school biology class, sci-fi books and movies, and quick researches on the Internet. Therefore, I can't guarantee scientific accuracy in my fics.

Well, that's it, I guess. Thank you for reading.


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